- Source: CNN " data-fave-thumbnails="{"big": { "uri": "https://media.cnn.com/api/v1/images/stellar/prod/180417095512-marion-sims-statue-removal.jpg?q=x_2,y_0,h_1079,w_1918,c_crop/h_540,w_960" }, "small": { "uri": "https://media.cnn.com/api/v1/images/stellar/prod/180417095512-marion-sims-statue-removal.jpg?q=x_2,y_0,h_1079,w_1918,c_crop/h_540,w_960" } }" data-vr-video="false" data-show-html="" data-byline-html="
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Updated 4:15 PM EDT, Tue April 17, 2018
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Marion Sims Statue Removal
Controversial statue removed from Central Park
00:48 - Source: CNN
New York CNN  — 

A statue of Dr. James Marion Sims is being removed on Tuesday from Central Park. The decision was approved by New York City’s Public Design Commission after Mayor Bill de Blasio created the task force following protests across the country over Confederate statues.

Parks Department workers place a harness over a statue of James Marion Sims as they prepare to take it down on Tuesday.
Parks Department workers place a harness over a statue of James Marion Sims as they prepare to take it down on Tuesday.
Spencer Platt/Getty Images

The city will relocate the statue, erected in 1894, to Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York, where Sims is buried, according to the mayor’s office.

The design commission on Monday voted unanimously, 7-0, to move the statue.

Sims was a surgeon in the 19th century who conducted experiments on women, usually women of color and mostly enslaved black women.

Sims is also looked at in the medical field as a pioneer in the practice of gynecology. One of the plaques next to his statue in Central Park read, “His brilliant achievement carried the fame of American surgery throughout the entire world.”